FilStreamboxAlan Zhou and Roland Lu, the owners and operators of Shenzhen Welnavi Technology Co., Ltd. factory, who police determined illegally programmed pirate IPTV boxes in Shenzhen and marketed and sold them around the world under the “Filstream” brand, were arrested and charged with copyright infringement by the Shenzhen police in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.

The arrests in China were the culmination of an eight-month long worldwide investigation spearheaded by ABS-CBN. To date, the investigation has resulted in the arrest and seizure of Filstream box distributors in Illinois and Florida.

Arrested together with Zhou and Lu were two programmers, who were all charged with copyright infringement. Zhou, Lu and the two programmers are expected to stay in jail until trial which is to begin in about a year. Shenzhen Welnavi has been fully shut down.

ABS-CBN Global COO Raffy Lopez was very clear about the company’s stand against piracy.

“The management of ABS- CBN has absolutely no tolernce for content piracy. We will continue to do everything in our power to prosecute all who would attempt to pirate our content,” said Lopez.

“Piracy is like a cancer in the content industry. The pirates, in their selfish pursuit of short-term profits, have absolutely no regard for their negative impact on the industry. We will continue our vigilance in finding and prosecuting all pirates regardless of the cost,” he added.

As the Filstream signal has been shut down, victims who purchased the Filstream boxes may call 1-866-746-6988 to receive one month free TFC subscription or visit www.tfc-usa.com/tfcbox for details.